Artful
by moonlighten
Summary: Nations live many lifetimes, and most of them bear many different soulmarks as a consequence. Scotland, however, only has one, and the words that it spells out are a crushing disappointment to him. (Soulmate AU; Scotland/France. Complete.)
1. Chapter 1

**Note:**

I've been completely lacking in inspiration for a few weeks, but I've been toying with this idea for a while and finally struck upon a starting place that felt right for it, and thankfully my writer's block disappeared as a consequence.

Stealing from myself again, as the soulmarks here are of the same kind as I used in a series of stories I wrote for Emmerdale, and (copying from that!) they consist of words, but they're not the first words, or the last words, or even the most important words, but just something that someone, somewhere might say to you.

And at the beginning of this fic:

 **Scotland** – Ucheldir (Highland)  
 **Wales** – Gorllewin (West)  
 **England** – Dwyrain (East)  
 **y bobl** \- the people (humans)  
-

* * *

-  
Y bobl have marks on their skin, too; Ucheldir has seen them many times on those who are unfortunate enough to wear their destiny where it cannot easily be hidden beneath a drape of cloth or wrap of wool.

But y bobl's marks make _sense_ where his does not, and show recognisable landmarks, animals or objects; somewhere someone might take them, or something they might show them when the time and the place and the person is right and it forges a connection between that burns down through their skin and bones and settles so deep within their hearts that only death could tear them asunder.

Ucheldir's mark is made up of nothing but thin curving lines that flow like water along the inside of his left forearm.

Dwyrain has two marks, Ucheldir has noticed when they bathe together, Gorllewin four, but they are just as incomprehensible as Ucheldir's own. The brothers puzzle over their meaning together many times until the inexorable march of both time and the Romans force them apart, and they forget how to talk about such things.

Pictland thinks they may be runes, and later realises they are words. Alba knows they are not Latin, or his own tongue, or his brothers', and though he cannot recognise the language they are written in, he knows that others might. It unsettles him to think that another person – some _stranger_ – may be able to decipher the secret his mark holds where he is unable to, needing nothing more than a glance as his words are so few, so he keeps it covered at all times, winding a bandage tight around his arm from wrist to elbow.

He never removes it, except to bathe. Not even when the summer sun climbs to its merciless peak, and it chafes his sweat-slick skin raw.

Not even when the impossible happens, and a promised alliance between their kings leads France to his bed, and he seems intent that every inch of Scotland be bared to his eyes.

He tugs insistently at the edges of the fabric, runs a curious finger beneath it, and Scotland is so pleased, delighted, _inflamed_ by the touch that he allows the imposition for far too long. The sudden shock of sensation when the bandage begins to unravel – the throbbing rush of blood to numbed flesh and soothing caress of cool air – returns him to his senses, and he gently pushes France's hands aside. Shakes his head.

France complies with obvious reluctance, pouting all the while. "What are you hiding under there?"

"Just my words." Scotland keeps his eyes downcast, because he knows that he will throw all caution aside if he looks on France's disappointed expression for too long. "I prefer to keep them private. Most do, don't they?"

"If they're able to," France concedes, "though I've never understood why. They're nothing to be ashamed of."

Even though Scotland's fumbling fingers had snarled the ties of his shirt into tangles, he makes quick work of unfastening them, and then casts the garment carelessly aside.

Scotland hadn't had the presence of mind, or the faculties remaining, to light more than one candle when they'd first stumbled into his bedchamber – half-drunk, with hands and mouths far too preoccupied for either speech or practicalities – but it's bright enough that he can make out the shape of France's marks, if not their details.

The letters at the base of his ribs are small and cramped, the ones inscribed on his chest long and looping. There are two marks on his left arm, three on his right, and all are black like Scotland's own. The words circling his navel appear to be red, and shimmer as though they are shot through with gold.

Scotland traces them all with the pad of his thumb, tallying them silently as he goes. He stops counting at ten, and, disheartened, lets his hand drop away to rest on his lap, heavy and impotent.

"So many," he says without thinking, and then cringes when France laughs at the sentiment he'd unwittingly shared.

"Well, it would be strange if we only had one or even two or three, like our people do," France says blithely. "We live so many years, we're bound to find many more hearts that beat in time with our own."

Although both England and Wales also have more than one mark, Scotland has doggedly continued to believe that they must represent more than mere compatibility. Perhaps not the bringing together of two halves of one soul, as humans of a more romantic or philosophical bent thought it to be, but _something_ more meaningful. More profound.

The bond could not be as strong as his people's stories described it to be, though. It couldn't be something that transformed people so thoroughly, became the very _core_ of them, not if France was fated to have the chance to form so many.

"I suppose so," he says anyway, ashamed now of his singular mark by France's evident amusement at the concept, and worried too that it speaks ill of him somehow.

That it demonstrates a damning difference between him and the rest of his kind; that perhaps his heart is too small, too self-contained, compared to theirs.

He is glad than ever that he chose long ago to keep his mark hidden, and gladder still that France's ardour quickly rises again, and with it brings an eagerness that allows no pause for negotiating the complexities of knots and bows. They come together half-dressed, and the next time they share a bed, Scotland makes sure to be ready, adding new bandages to thigh and calf to hint at other marks kept concealed from France's view.

France soon tires of trying to peek beneath them, and not long after, seems to tire of Scotland, too. Their love-making continues, but loses its urgency, and what little pillow talk they used to indulge in afterward dwindles and eventually stops. Scotland mourns the loss, but in these quiet moments they share together, lying side by side and not touching, he does find reward of a different sort.

In them, he simply looks at France and maps the marks that pepper his skin.

Most of them, he cannot comprehend, but there are two that stand out. The first, curled at the base of his spine, is rendered in Latin: a simple phrase, one that Scotland has said to France many times and never once seen a change in his countenance when he hears it, no sign that it has spoken to some deeper part of him. Still, the time and the place have to be right, as well as the words – or so conventional wisdom goes – and its presence there remains a tantalising possibility.

The second is less auspicious, but intriguing all the same. It's written in what appears to be a close cousin to England's tongue – or maybe Scotland's own – which should be an encouraging sight, but as the words it spells out are ones that Scotland cannot even begin to imagine speaking to France, it is not.

As the years pass, and Scotland learns more of France's language as it shifts and evolves, Scotland's own mark ceases to be a cipher to him, which proves to be an unexpectedly crushing disappointment. The first two words are simple ones, so common-place that Scotland has heard them from France's lips a hundred times or more unfeelingly, and the name that follows them is one that France no longer uses for him. After the initial thrill of recognition, a moment's ecstasy of hope, it seems more certain that ever that his feelings for France – no matter how fierce – are apparently not meant to be.

That knowledge does not help to temper them, however. Instead and perversely, they grow ever stronger over the centuries, just as France's own evidently cool at the same rate. Nevertheless, Scotland persists despite all the many times that his letters to France go unanswered, all the many touches that go unreciprocated and questions unanswered, because France still turns to him to defend him in battle, invites him to share his bed time and again, and that has to mean something, even though Scotland's skin tells him it isn't true love, no matter what his heart and head might have to say to the contrary.

He isn't sure he trusts the mark's opinion on the matter, in any case. His own people very rarely have the opportunity or even the means to meet their so-called soulmates, and yet they still fall in love, marry, and raise families. They live perfectly contentedly without forming that bond, and surely Scotland can, too.

Besides, no-one's ever been able to describe what one might be like to Scotland's satisfaction; all the human writings he's read on the subject have only talked about nebulous sensations, overlaid with a thick layer of poetic guff of the sort Wales likes to spout which, when it comes down to it, means nothing at all.

France has always refused to be drawn on the subject.

All in all, he doesn't feel as though he's missing anything much, so he continues on in some semblance of love, if not much contentment, until France finally, inevitably, becomes tired of dragging around the threadbare remnants of what passes for their relationship, and casts it aside.

Their alliance is already in tatters, and France has been growing ever more distant for years, but, despite that, the end somehow still comes as a surprise to Scotland. It hits him like a punch to the stomach, and leaves him just as breathless. He tries to drown the frantic, clawing feeling in his chest with wine, but it only makes it sharper, more painful, and turns his thoughts in increasingly desperate directions.

Desperate enough to fall to his knees and beg France to reconsider, to give him some more time, another chance.

But France ignores his pleas. He offers nothing more than a curt farewell, and then, as he turns his back and walks away, appends that old name of Scotland's – the one that isn't truly his and that France hasn't used otherwise for an age – seemingly as an afterthought; a hateful full stop ending what they once were. Yet another twist of the knife in his gut.

Scotland's mark flares with heat, burning through his skin like a brand.


	2. Chapter 2

As soon as he can find some time alone, a dark corner, Scotland pushes up his sleeve and unwraps the bandage from his arm, expecting to find the skin beneath cracked and blistered.

But it is unmarred, and, when he lays an experimental hand against it, not even unusually warm to the touch. The words have not changed; they do not glow from within, as Scotland had imagined they might in the more fanciful of his daydreams. They have not become any lovelier to his eye. That stark and dismissive goodbye is still scrawled there in the same slapdash, irregular hand.

The mark feels no different now that the initial blaze of connection has faded away, and Scotland doesn't either.

He's still heartsick, head sore, and bereft, even though, truly, he likely lost France a century back or more. He'd just been too stubborn to admit as much.

If there is a bond, now that France has spoken his words at just the right time and just the right way, he can't sense it. Not in those few, nauseatingly uncomfortable days he's forced to stay on in France's home until he can arrange a premature return to his own country, nor in the months and years that follow.

His stomach is often unsettled, but as he can barely wring more than a couple hours of sleep out of each night, and drinking from sunup to sundown each day, that seems only natural. And though his head does buzz whenever his thoughts turn to France, prickling as though a thousand tiny needles are being pressed against the inside of his skull, thinking of him has always made Scotland feel unlike himself; giddy and near-intoxicated, his mind not quite his own.

There's nothing mystical about it. Nothing transcendental. Scotland doesn't find himself transformed, and he's halfway managed to persuade himself that the marks must simply be some cruel trick played on the credulous by fate, or the heavens, or whatsoever arranges these things, when he happens to run into France again.

They meet not by Scotland's design, or France's, but by England's indifference. Despite knowing full well that Scotland has no desire to see France for the foreseeable, he had neglected to mention to either of them that their visits to his home might overlap, and thus Scotland had found unprepared and blindsided by France in the hallway outside his brother's study.

France looks straight through Scotland, and for a moment it seems as though he might not deign to acknowledge his presence at all, but eventually he spits forth that odious name, drawing the last syllable out into a spiteful-sounding hiss. " _Écosse_."

Scotland's stomach lurches, and between the wave of vertigo that washes over him, and the ringing in his ears, he can neither marshal his thoughts into any kind of coherence, nor hear the sound of his own voice. He doesn't know what name he greets France with, and can only pray it was the right one.

"Are you staying here long?" France asks, and, "'Til the end of the week," Scotland thinks he replies.

France has no visible reaction to that news; his expression does not falter from blankness. He just nods his head, then turns and walks away without another word.

Scotland can sense his every footstep.

Not in the old, familiar way – in stirred magic and the eddying of the earth's power – but by the tug of something deep inside him, growing ever stronger the further away France moves, and the changing cadence of the thunderous noise echoing through his head.

He can track France's movements by the ebb and flow of it: pacing back and forth in England's library, the dining room, and later the gardens. It's disorientating, distracting, _horrible_ , and if this is the much-vaunted bond, he wants no part of it. He can't concentrate on anything else: tries to read, but can't force his eyes to focus on the words; tries to walk, but his legs are weak and shaky, and his feet persist on turning him in France's direction no matter never mind his own wishes on the matter.

All he is fit for is lying on his bed, feeling sick and wretched, but England soon puts paid to any hopes he might have entertained of remaining thus until such time as France fucks off back to whence he came.

Instead his brother nags and harries him downstairs, to dinner, and to France seated across the table, studiously ignoring his existence.

Scotland tries to do the same. Alcohol seems to help with that, and he throws back glass after glass after glass of wine, which earns him a sneer from England, and some pointed remarks about his profligate habits.

France, too, looks to be overindulging, whenever Scotland summons up the fortitude to send a wary glance his way. Normally, he would linger over his wine – sniffing and swilling and pontificating about every sip – but today he's guzzling it down so quickly that he can't possibly even taste it.

Scotland can hardly blame him for that; meals spent with England are a trial at the best of times, and drunkenness the best way to endure them.

The night has grown long by the time England finally releases them from his company, excusing himself with some fiction about business he needs to attend to in his study – nodding off over a book with a glass of port at his elbow, more likely – and Scotland lurches to his feet immediately, meaning to follow his brother's lead and find somewhere else he can claim the need to be.

Seeing France's struggles to find his own footing after rising from his chair gives him pause, though. Makes him linger longer than he ought. Compels him to throw all caution to the wind, and grab hold of France's elbow with a steadying hand when France begins to sway.

The contact reverberates up Scotland's arm and through his chest, hard, and hot, and bruising. He gasps from the force of it, his heart quickening, but France, of course, is unmoved.

He mumbles something approximating thanks, and then, in an even softer, more tremulous tone, asks if Scotland might see fit to help guide him to the bedchamber England has appointed him for his stay.

It's the very worst sort of idea, and Scotland should be moving further away, not closer. He shouldn't be sliding an arm around France's waist, allowing France to lean his weight against him; not with his thoughts all muddled and jumbled with drink, and whatever the fuck the bond is singing sweetly through his veins.

But he does it anyway, because he's never learnt how to deny France _anything_.

He can't deny the sloppy kiss that France plants on his lips at the door to the bedchamber, or the hands that insinuate themselves under his shirt. He can't resist being pushed down onto France's borrowed bed after, no more than he can resist France's voice, or his mouth, or his touch.

He can't, and he doesn't want to, because France's touch is _searing_ , and he feels each one with a clarity he hasn't experienced before; every minute change in pressure, every last whorl on the tips of France's fingers.

It awakens him to a new awareness of his own body, and of France's. He's never felt so present in a single moment, and the dimly lit room seems to brighten, colours growing more vivid: France's hair gilding to a burnished gold, his eyes lightening to the sky blue that Scotland remembers from the earlier years of their acquaintance, rather than the storm-cloud grey they have seemed to tend towards in recent times.

It is, Scotland supposes, something approaching transformative, but he is not surprised when France shrugs off his touch as soon as they have both found their completion, and thereafter brusquely dismisses him from his bed.

He knows, after all, that none of the words on France's skin are ones he has spoken, or is ever likely to speak. The mark and the bond might have confirmed that France is Scotland's soulmate – something he has suspected for centuries – but it doesn't mean that he is _France's_.

By all accounts, unreciprocated bonds aren't uncommon, and those lumbered with them learn how to adapt, how to survive and even thrive.

Scotland isn't sure how – the queasiness and buzzing both return as soon as he leaves France's side – but for the time being, the best he can do is to try to ignore the feeling.

That becomes easier when he and France have put hundreds of miles between them again, and as the years roll on, and put the distance of time between them as well, it becomes even easier yet.

Easy enough that Scotland isn't aware of the bond at all for the most part, and he could almost believe he had imagined it wholesale, did it not rouse into fresh, maddening life as soon as he sets eyes on France.

Thankfully, that doesn't happen often outside the battlefield – where Scotland's blood is already hot, his heart pounding, and the bond merely intensifies those feelings, but doesn't create them – but on those few occasions when France, overcome by what he terms his pathetic sentimentality and cursing himself for it all the while, weakens sufficiently that they reacquaint themselves on more intimate terms.

And Scotland can never refuse him, not only for France's sake now, but his own. For the chance to revel in the bond once more, to sink down into it, and pretend for a short while that it's something he can get to have.

It takes ever longer to recover following their erratic encounters, though, and the headaches and sickness that follow are ever stronger.  
Deep in his cups one night, shortly after one such ill-advised liaison, and too distracted by pain and longing to keep the tight hold on his tongue he usually does, he finds himself spilling out his heart to Jersey.

She listens to every tortured, humiliating word in silence, and then – kindly, and not in so many words – calls him a fool.

"You're just making it harder to live with," she tells him, "by allowing yourself to have a little taste every now and again. I know my cousin, and even being fully bonded has never kept him constant."

"I know, and I've never expected that of him, but—"

"But you _want_ it, don't you?"

"Aye," Scotland has to admit, even though the admission shames him.

"And soon enough, you'll need it, if you keep on going back to him. Indulging in the bond."

Scotland nods, reluctant even though he knows she's speaking the truth. He's already felt that need building; the desire to throw away pride and prostrate himself at France's feet to beg for whatever small scraps of attention and counterfeit affection France might be willing to throw his way. And that was cold enough comfort before the bond, and the glimpses it had shown him of how much more was possible.

He sighs deeply. "But what can I do? The bond's always going to be there, isn't it? No-one's ever found a way to break them."

"Maybe not, but there is a way to make them so… so small, so insignificant that they might as well have broken."

She sounds so certain of that that Scotland can only conclude that she's speaking from personal experience.

When he suggests as much, Jersey gives him a thin smile, and an evasive, "Maybe."

"So how would I go about making it insignificant, then?" Scotland asks.

"You push it down deep, you ignore it—"

"I've already tried that."

"When he's standing right in front of you?"

Scotland shakes his head. No, he gives in every time. He _indulges_.

"You have to ignore it all the time, Scot, not just when it's easy to do so. If you're persistent enough, it _will_ fade."

So, Scotland does ignore it, whether France is far away or close enough to kiss; he pushes it down deep with everything else he'd prefer not to feel.

And in time, it works as well as Jersey had told him it would. Well enough that, when he is forced into passing time with France at the gathering England arranges to mark the arrangement of their 'entente cordiale', and France – with the absentmindedness of long-engrained habit – touches his arm to emphasise some point or other he's making, he feels nothing more than faint pressure and a whisper of heat, just as he would were France anyone else.


	3. Chapter 3

Scotland cannot pick one day from the trenches out from any other. They all follow the same pattern; even the violence, ever more horrifying for becoming routine.

He wakes each day at the same time to the same stench and clamour and hollow-bellied despair, and then meets with England to stand side by side in the same spot, shoulders pressed tight together and their feet sinking deep in the same caustic and stinking mud, silently chain-smoking their way through a good portion of their daily ration of cigarettes.

Then they eat the same tasteless slop for breakfast, perform the same inspections and chores as they did yesterday and will do tomorrow.

And then, there is nothing. Hour after empty hour trudging slowly towards dusk and the second stand-to, where they will stand on their trench's fire step, rifles raised and eyes fixed on the German's trenches, where their soldiers are no doubt doing the same.

Scotland passes those empty hours with England, drinking endless cups of lukewarm, gritty tea as they engage in desultory conversation which brings no real enjoyment to either of them.

It _is_ a distraction, though. It helps them ignore the distant rattle of gunfire, the constant, gnawing hunger, and the corpse-rot and cordite stink that surrounds them; that has ground itself so deep into their skin that no amount of tepid, cloudy water and army-issue soap can shift it.

By mutual, unspoken accord, they do not speak of the past – it always leads to arguments, and they're both too tired to fight on a second front – nor do they have the heart to speculate on any future more distant than what the next hour might bring.

They have only the unchanging present, and everything they can find to say on _that_ subject has been said a hundred times or more before.

At first, Wales' obvious infatuation with his young gunner had added some much-needed variety to their conversations, but a month on from Private Alasdair McMillan's arrival in their trench, it's become just another part of that same, well-worn routine.

England always insists that Wales will get himself in trouble over him, that he's bound to get his heart broken, which Scotland inevitably disputes because, here and now, so many of the normal mores and strictures that govern their men's lives back home have fallen by the wayside, he doubts anyone much cares that their brother sits far too close to the lad; touches him so casually, and with the familiarity of a lover.  
However, one day, indistinguishable from any other preceding it, England's narrow-eyed observation of Wales and gunner does not culminate in the habitual hand-wringing and censure, but a heavy sigh. "Do you think they might be bonded?" he asks.

Scotland glances across the trench to where his brother and McMillan are sitting, heads and knees and hands brushing together as they bend over a small notebook, enrapt in whatever it is McMillan has written there. Wales is smiling broadly, cheeks pinked with pleasure, but Scotland has seen him behave in exactly the same way over countless humans in his time, and he very much doubts Wales was bonded to all of them.

He simply shrugs in response to England otherwise, though, as he's never cared to speculate about his brothers' love-lives and has no wish to encourage such talk.

England ploughs ahead, regardless. "I mean, they're inseparable now, and Wales is… Well, he's clearly not in his right mind, given the way he's carrying on. I wouldn't be surprised if one of his soulmates is human, would you?"

He doesn't pause for long enough for Scotland to give an answer, before adding, "In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if _all_ of them were."

Scotland knows for certain that they aren't. The words written in Ogham, curling around Wales' right wrist, have already been spoken, albeit far too late to do anyone any good. That secret belongs to two dead men who wanted it to be buried alongside them, so Scotland doesn't share it with his brother, and instead asks: "Why do you care?"

"I don't," England snaps, but the disgruntled silence he settles into afterwards seems to belie his words, as does the poisonous glower he keeps trained on Wales and McMillan until they eventually up sticks move out of his line of sight.

Scotland doesn't much care to speculate on his brothers' states of mind, either, but he nevertheless suspects England might be jealous.

Scotland definitely is.

Whatever Wales and the gunner may have together in truth, he's jealous of their easy camaraderie and insouciant physicality. His own soulmate is never more than a few feet away through the day, sleeps in the room next to his every night in the dugout, and yet they've barely spoken more than two words together to each other since the war began.

France never looks at him directly except by necessity, and when their paths happen to cross in the trench, and the tight packed walls force them to step around one another, France is scrupulous in ensuring that no part of his body ever suffers even a glancing brush against Scotland's.

Which is all for the best, really. Scotland tells himself that over and over and over again in the hopes that the repetition will make it easier to believe rather than know it to be true. The bond is quiescent still, despite the close quarters they're forced to share, but he fears he won't be able to keep it pushed down inside him, keep it small and insignificant, if France were to meet his eyes boldly or if they were to touch with deliberation.

And he wants to touch France, so badly that he aches from the desire for it, if only to reassure himself that France is more solid than he seems. Because lately, France is so thin as to be near-insubstantial, and his cadaverous cheeks are ghost-pale, as though he doesn't have a drop of blood left to warm them.

Which might well be the case, he discovers some time later, after he has taken France up on his diffident invitation to join him in the dugout alone. He should have told him no, even opened up his mouth to say as much, but all that tumbled had tumbled out afterwards was his old, unthinking acquiescence.

He prepares belated rebuffs in head as he trails France down the stairs, practices them over and again under his breath as France pushes back the curtain that serves as a makeshift door to his room, and ushers Scotland inside. But although France is quick to divest himself of both greatcoat and shirt, and to seat himself on his narrow cot, it soon becomes clear that he did not come to Scotland looking for intimacy.

Even if he had, Scotland isn't sure if he'd have been capable of it. For the first time in his life, the sight of France's naked flesh doesn't rouse passion in him, but sorrow. Pity, even, though he'd never admit as much to France.

Without the deceptive bulk of his uniform, he looks emaciated – pale skin stretched taut over every last gaunt line of his bones – but it is the lacerations that cover his back which catch and then hold Scotland's attention. There are ten, twenty, of them, maybe more, each deep, straight and long; running from the nape of his neck to the small of his back and slicing through the words nestled there, dried blood smudging them into illegibility.

Scotland hasn't spoken Latin to France in centuries, but seeing that particular mark obliterated still makes his breath catch, his one last, frayed hope thinning further.  
He quickly follows the involuntary gasp with a question, in an attempt to obscure it: "What happened to you?"

"The trenches, I think," France says, hitching his shoulders in a dismissive shrug.

Scotland has never seen wounds like France's before, but that does make a strange kind of sense. "Do they… Do they hurt?" he asks.

"A little," France says, "but they itch more. I fear they may be becoming infected, so…"

He gestures towards the tin bowl filled with gently steaming water set on the floor by the foot of his cot, and then turns slightly, holding out a scrap of cloth towards Scotland.

His meaning seems perfectly clear, but Scotland still struggles to believe the evidence of his own eyes. "You… You want me to clean them?"

"I can't reach well enough to do it myself." France's eyelids flutter closed. "Please, _Écosse_. There's no-one else I can ask."

Scotland supposes there isn't. No matter how many of their men France has flirted with over the weeks and months they have been stuck together in the trenches, he hasn't, as far as Scotland has been able to tell – and, despite his best intentions, he's been watching France very closely indeed himself – allowed any of them to become particularly close to him.

He also supposes that France's pain is far more acute than he will admit. He never would have lowered himself to ask this of Scotland, otherwise.

When he eventually gives in, takes the cloth from France, and presses it to his back, he half-expects to feel a faint echo of that same pain. He's read that strong feelings can be transmitted through a bond, and he can't imagine simply _ignoring_ it will help. Not in the face of such devastation.

But he feels nothing but the heat of France's inflamed skin, hears nothing but the shallow, panting breaths France takes.

He winces when France's back bows and his shoulders tense, but only in sympathy, not borrowed emotion.

He can only conclude that he's buried the bond deeply enough that it'll likely never resurface. Something which becomes even more apparent a few days later, when France looks at him in just the right way, and says just the right words, not to speak a bond, but to make Scotland forget all his good sense and fall into bed with France once more.


	4. Chapter 4

When he first comes to them, Northern Ireland isn't the baby they'd expected when they'd heard the initial reports of his existence, but a toddler. He'd be taken for a two-year-old, if he were human, perhaps three at a pinch, given the height of him, but he has none of the cherubic plumpness common in children that age. He's stick-thin and bony, solemn-faced and silent.

He's also unmarked.

It's not unheard of, or even unusual, for babies to be born with clear skin, their marks shading in gradually over the years as they grow, but England won't hear a word of reassurance on the matter. He worries about it just as incessantly as he worries about Northern Ireland's continued inability to speak.

"Maybe there's no-one out there for him," he says both dolorously and often. "Poor lad."

 _Poor lad_. As though the damn marks are a blessing that Northern Ireland's been cruelly denied, even though, to Scotland's knowledge, they've never done anyone in their family any good. Ireland's never found anyone she's wanted to dally with for longer than a handful of months at a time, throughout all the many long years of her life. Wales' gunner didn't make it through the war, and now he flits from human to human again, just as he always has. England is still alone.

Scotland's bond is a burden and he half-hopes, for Northern Ireland's sake, that he will remain unmarked.

But not long after Northern Ireland puts one of England's worries to bed by starting to talk, inky black smudges bloom across the inside of his right forearm.

The words that slowly form there aren't written in any of the languages Northern Ireland's learning to read, seemingly, and he insists time and again that he can't make head nor tail of them. Even though England berates him for the habit – _Not at the dinner table, North_ ; _Not in the park, North, people are staring_ ; _If you_ insist _on doing it, do it in your bedroom where it's nice and private_ – whenever he has a spare moment, Northern Ireland traces the letters with the tip of a finger and sounds them out one by one.

And that should be the end of the matter, but as England is incapable of being content, or even satisfied, his anxieties simply reshape themselves into a new form.

"It's not normal for one of our kind to just have one mark," he frets. "It's almost as bad as having none at all. It'll still set him apart as some kind of… of _oddity_."

Scotland wonders if his brother has forgotten that he has only one set of words himself. Probably not. England's insults towards him are very seldom accidental.

He does not rise to them, though. He nods, mouths platitudes, and apes sharing somewhat of England's concerns – convincingly enough, he thinks, to divert England's suspicions on the off-chance he _doesn't_ remember – but privately he's pleased. Pleased to have proof that _he_ isn't an _oddity_ ; that he isn't alone amongst their kind, or even within his own family.

That pleasure is short-lived, doomed to die only a few, short months later when Northern Ireland's second mark grows in, curled tight around his elbow where he cannot hope to read it, no matter to what tortuous angle he bends his head or contorts his body. Which he does, frequently – at the dinner table, and in the park, and, presumably, in the privacy of his own bedroom – and when his frustration finally gets the better of him, he begs England to tell him what his words say.

England is just as indulgent where Northern Ireland is concerned as he ever was with their weans, and rarely denies him anything, but on this he stands firm. "It's not my place to do so," he says. "Those words aren't for me. They're only for you and whoever your soulmate happens to be."

Northern Ireland doesn't make the same request of either Wales or Scotland, but the next time France pays one of his sporadic visits to their home, he's barely set foot past the threshold when Northern Ireland marches up to him, pushes up his sleeve, and sticks his marked elbow under his nose.

"North!" Scotland barks, startling both France and Northern Ireland, and they both look at him warily. "Put that away. It's as bad as dropping your pants and waggling your… Shoving your arse in someone's face!"

France's expression hardens, his eyes sharp with admonishment, but when he speaks to Northern Ireland, his tone is soft and soothing. "It's all right, _Irlande du Nord_ ," he purrs. "There's no need to be embarrassed of your marks. I'd be happy to read it for you, if you like."

But Northern Ireland is already backing away, hurriedly covering his arm, and no amount of reassurance or wheedling on France's part can persuade him to bare it again. Which is all for the good, and Scotland thinks the matter settled when France finally mutters imprecations against British prudery and throws up his hands as if in defeat.

But it's merely deferred, and resurfaces later that evening, in bed, where the subject of soulmarks, and, especially, Northern Ireland has no place.

Usually, _conversation_ has no place, not after they've fucked, when the best Scotland can hope for is France bidding him goodnight because he's satisfied enough to sleep. If they are going to break a habit hundreds of years in the making, there are so many other things Scotland would have liked to hear from France than:

"What happened with _Irlande du Nord_ earlier was poorly done. You're going to make the poor boy ashamed of his own skin, if he isn't already."

Scotland rolls onto his back, stares up at the ceiling to avoid the censure in France's eyes. "He'll have to learn some time," he says. "Most other people aren't like you; they don't…"

'Flaunt' sits easy on Scotland's lips, because it seems to him that that is what France has always done with his marks. He's ever been eager for opportunities to expose or accentuate them. In the seventeenth century, when fashions trended towards artful, revealing cutaways, he was an early, enthusiastic proponent, even though his own clothing ended up as little better than netting to accommodate all his words. In the eighteenth, it was make-up meant to emphasise a mark and draw the eye; France's own was so ostentatious as to be almost garish.

Nowadays, he stays buttoned up, ensconced in staid suits, just like Scotland does, but the fabric of his shirts is unfashionably, obscenely thin. Thin enough that, whenever he doffs his jacket, the placement each of the marks on his upper body is perfectly clear, even though they remain illegible still.

He's proud of them – perhaps because he has so many – and would take offence at being accused of 'flaunting'. The suggestion that he's doing something unseemly.

Scotland hastily swallows back the word, and says, "They're uncomfortable with other people reading their words, because they think they should be—"

"Private," France finishes for him, his voice laced with disgust. "You've told me as much. Many times. I'm afraid I still don't understand it. They're not obscene. They're just a sign that somebody, somewhere could love and understand you better than any other, and that shouldn't be hidden away like a guilty secret."

France hasn't touched any of Scotland's bandages since their first night together – hasn't even _looked_ at them for almost as long – but now he runs his fingertips over them. First the shield on his left arm, then the lies on his calf, and, finally, his thigh. He rests his hand there, palm flat and fingers splayed wide. The warmth and light pressure of his touch is distracting. Likely, it's meant to be.

Because Scotland can't concentrate on dissembling with it there, and when France asks, "Has anyone ever seen your marks?"

He answers truthfully: "Only England and Wales, back when we were bairns and didn't know what writing was. We thought they were nothing more than pretty patterns."

"There's really been no-one else?" France asks. "No friends or" – his hand shifts, drifting a little higher – "lovers?"

Scotland has never taken a lover other than France, and those few people France invited to share their bed, an aeon ago now. He shakes his head.

"Really? So it's not just me you don't trust." France's voice is rough, breaking a little on the last word. There's an old hurt there; one he's never allowed Scotland to be privy to before.

"I do trust you, France," Scotland says in respect to that pain, but, this time, it's only half a truth.

After fighting alongside him again in the Great War, Scotland's willing to trust him with his body again, with his life, and to guard his back in battle. But not with his words. Never with his words.

France would know in an instant that they were his, and likely then guess at the bond. And the bond has no place in this new place they've found themselves in after the trenches.

It's supposed to be casual, easy, with no attempts on either of their parts to recapture what they'd already failed to build together in their youth. A bond could never be _casual_ , though, and France would want no part of it.

There's no way to explain it, except in the way that'd break everything apart all over again, so Scotland falls back on the safety of the same, tired old words that England has repeated to Northern Ireland so often of late. "But the words are only for me, and my… my soulmate."

"I wish you'd told me that sooner, Scotland," France says; chiding, as though in the belief that Scotland has keeping things from him, even though he's never asked outright before now. "All these years, I'd been thinking… Well, I'm glad to hear it was never anything _personal_."

He doesn't sound glad, that same hurt is still there, but when Scotland opens his mouth to question him further, France slides his hand even higher and distracts him so thoroughly that he can't form a coherent thought, never mind a sentence.


	5. Chapter 5

They've scarcely had chance to draw breath before war is upon them once more. Before Scotland is standing on a beach in Dunkirk, the Germans at his back and the Channel with its tenuous promise of freedom ahead of him; trapped between the two by France's embrace.

If he cared to, Scotland could free himself with ease. It wouldn't take much; a single nudge of the elbow or push to the shoulder would likely send France reeling. The Great War had worn him down to the nub, and there's nothing left of him but a jumble of bones and gristle wrapped tight in chapped skin. He's pale, sickly, and, for the first time in their long acquaintance, fragile enough to be breakable.

Scotland clings on as hard as he can, regardless, because it could be years before he gets to have this again. It could be never, so he devours every last detail of this moment like a starving man presented with a feast.

It doesn't matter that all the food is rotten, that France stinks of fear sweat and his own blood, that his breath is sour and short, and there is no comfort or concern in France's hands as he claws at his hips, only desperation. He savours every last scrap, and hungers for more, even though he knows more is impossible.

"You should leave," France says, mouth pressed close against Scotland's ear. "Your brothers are waiting for you."

And though it runs counter to all of his baser desires, Scotland also knows France is right. Here, he might hold his heart in his arms, but his soul – or, at least, the greater part of it – lies hundreds of miles away beyond the sea. He would wither away without his people beside him, in mind if not in body.

Still, that doesn't mean he doesn't mean he has to be _happy_ about the decision he's already certain he'll make.

"I don't want to go," he tells France accordingly, and with a great deal more petulance than he'd intended.

France's answering laughter is neither kind nor amused. There's a cutting edge to it which suggests that he thinks Scotland is being very foolish.

"Nonetheless, you must," he says. "We both know you cannot stay."

Scotland wants to tell him how that shared understanding tears at him, how deeply he wishes he could honour the ancient promise he'd made to protect France until his dying breath, but when he opens his mouth to say as much, France cuts him off with a kiss.

It's just as sharp as his laughter had been – dry, bruisingly hard, and far, far too swift – and France pushes Scotland away afterwards with surprising strength, forcibly enough to catch him off-guard and send him off-balance.

As Scotland struggles to find his footing again, France stalks away across the sand, the cold, stiff lines of his back and his silence a clear mirror to that night, centuries ago, when he'd first cast Scotland aside, and the dismissal is just as clear as it had been then. There will be no goodbyes, no tender parting words. France has made the choice – even if it was no choice in truth – for both of them, leaving Scotland no recourse but to obey.

So, he joins his brothers on the small boat that will carry them to the relative safety of home, and days spent in fast-dwindling hope and ever-increasing anxiety, waiting for the news that now seems inevitable.

When it finally comes, via de Gaulle's voice on the wireless – ' _This government, alleging the defeat of our armies, has made contact with the enemy in order to stop the fighting_ ' – Scotland simply feels numb.

Four days beforehand, when he and his brothers had been informed by the PM that Paris had surrendered, Scotland's rage and despair had consumed him, and he'd lashed out at anyone and everyone that ventured into striking distance until Wales and England eventually managed to blindside him and drag him away from the Palace of Westminster.

Now, though Wales sobs himself hoarse over France's fate, and even England sheds a tear or two, Scotland remains dry-eyed, with nothing but an empty, hollow feeling in his chest where surely sorrow should be.

Where, he suspects, the _bond_ should be. Where it _would_ be, if he hadn't pushed it down, ignored it, and closed himself off from it so completely that he hadn't felt it so much as _twinge_ when he'd held France tight and feared it might be the last time they ever saw one another.

That night in bed, he lies back and, for the first time in over a hundred years, he opens himself up to the bond once more. He reaches out with it, tentatively at first, but with increasing desperation as the empty hours pass by, searching for some trace of France, of some small echo of that feeling of contentment and connection he'd once indulged in with no thought but his own pleasure.

But, once more, there's nothing. Not on that night, or any of the nights that follow over the next four years when he's too weak, or despondent, or _lonely_ to resist trying again.

He tells himself over and over that his failures don't prove that France is… that France is _gone_. He's eviscerated France with his own hands, and France's own people sent him to the guillotine, and he survived. Their kind do not die quickly or easily, and France has weathered many wars intact if not unscathed.

And over and over, he almost persuades himself that he shouldn't have expected anything more. Even strong, paired bonds thin over time and distance, or so he's been told, and if that is the case, then his own must surely have shrivelled up and died from neglect long since.

He still can't quite manage to believe it, though, not until Paris has been liberated and he and England are given sent word from the top brass that France himself has been found, locked away in a crumbling apartment building, where he'd been imprisoned since his government surrendered, for fear of where his loyalties might lie.

He's even more emaciated than when Scotland last saw him, not a spare ounce of flesh left on his frame, his hair lank and skin lined and greying, but still undeniably, fantastically _alive_.

When England, with uncharacteristic compassion and tact, withdraws to allow them a moment to 'reacquaint' themselves, France immediately falls against Scotland, buries his face in the crook of Scotland's neck, and clasps him just as closely as he did at Dunkirk.

Closely enough that Scotland can feel every last biting edge of his raw bones, digging deep into his skin, and even his racing heartbeat, resounding against his own ribs. But beyond that, there's still nothing. That place deep inside him, where his blood had once pounded and his nerves had once sung whenever France touched him or even gave him the time of day, is still calm. Empty. Dead.

Supposedly, it's impossible, but if it hasn't roused here and now, with France in his arms again after all the pain, and regret, and longing he's endured over the past few years, then surely Scotland _has_ managed to break his bond, after all.

It was what he'd been striving towards, what he'd hoped for, but, if only for the span of their brief embrace, Scotland still finds himself mourning its loss.


	6. Chapter 6

For a brief, shining moment following Germany's surrender, Scotland allows himself to hope that he might yet be able to recapture that small part of France's heart which was once his own.

For three days, France has been unwilling to be parted from his side, even to sleep. They walk the _Champs-Élysées_ together, arm in arm, sharing both the jubilation of France's people and an effortless camaraderie that Scotland hasn't otherwise experienced since their youth.

France is cadaverous due to his long imprisonment, skeletally thin and reeking of neglect, but his smile is broad, unaffected, and springs more readily to his lips than it has done for years. Despite everything, he looks beautiful, his laughter _sounds_ beautiful, and when he sways on his feet and Scotland draws him close to steady him, he clings tight instead of pulling away.

Scotland's blood _does_ pound in response, his nerves _do_ sing; not with the bond but something far older. Something far stronger, he'd like to think, because it's persevered whilst the bond withered on the stem. Encouraged by France's closeness, his smiles, and a far too much wine drunk on an empty stomach, Scotland feels brave and foolish enough to give voice to the feeling for the first time.

For words that have been so long and so deeply buried, they're remarkably easy to say. "I love you."

He waits breathlessly for France's reply, but France makes none. In fact, he gives no indication that he even heard him at all.

It's also remarkably easy for Scotland to reason his lack of reaction away: the crowds that surround them are raucous, and France has been rendered near-delirious by the effects of their collective happiness. Those words might not be a bond, but they're alike in one way: they need to be spoken in just the right way, and most pertinently, at just the right time. Scotland has been patient for centuries, he can wait a little while longer for the perfect moment to present itself.

But it never comes, because as the sharp immediacy of his people's joy dulls, so too do France's feelings. Gradually but inexorably, he draws ever further back from Scotland in the weeks that follow, until he's almost as aloof as he was during the years they were estranged.

Contrary to Scotland's pessimistic assumptions, he doesn't break away entirely, but instead suggests a return the status quo that he had imposed on them after the Great War. Something casual, with no expectations on either side. Just, "two old friends enjoying each other's company when the fancy takes them, and their circumstances align".

It's not even within spitting distance of what Scotland wants from him, but he accepts it anyway, because must be better than nothing, surely?

As the decades crawl by, France's fancy strikes him less and less, seemingly. His visits to England's house – and later Scotland's – become sporadic, and he's more distant with every one. He seldom smiles, and they scarcely speak anymore, beyond France's demands for "faster," and "harder," when they fuck. Even then, the one time when Scotland has always been confident he can satisfy France despite everything, he has begun to disappoint.

He has to wonder why France keeps coming back, no matter how infrequently. If what they have now is merely the last vestiges of a habit France hasn't quite been able to overcome.

His own habit of gratitude for the odd week, or day, or even fraction of an hour that he gets to hold France and pretend it means something more than convenience is certainly a tenacious one, enduring even though that empty, dead space deep inside Scotland spreads and grows until he feels as though he's nothing more than a thin shell stretched tight around the margins of it.

A thin, _brittle_ shell, it turns out, needing nothing more than a swift tap in just the right place to shatter completely, and Netherlands unwittingly provides that final blow.

France had wanted the other nation to share their bed, and although Scotland had always hated that sort of arrangement before – hated seeing someone else's hands on France's body, someone else's mouth against his skin – he agreed to it anyway, because he had never learnt how to deny France _anything_.

It wasn't the private familiarity of their touches that finished it, though; in the end, it was everything else. The way France had talked to Netherlands, had looked at him and listened to him as though there was nothing in the whole world he'd rather see or hear.

Scotland hasn't been granted that place at the centre of France's attention since they were weans together, barring those few, short days in Paris, more than half a century ago.

The realisation isn't a shock, and it isn't a revelation. It is only a truth that he's chosen to ignore for hundreds of years, and that quiet moment of acknowledgment standing beside France's bed and watching him cuddle close against Netherlands' side shatters everything.

 _He's tired of this_.

Tired of being the contingency, the backup plan, and waiting and desperately hoping he might stumble across that damnable, elusive perfect moment that would somehow fix everything. That moment, if there ever were such a thing, had likely been and gone even before France spoke Scotland's words and his embryonic bond fizzled and died on its arse.

So, he leaves France's apartment and shortly thereafter his country entire, retreating across the Channel to London, and the dubious comfort of England's company.

There, when he is drunk enough to admit as much, he tells his brother that he's dumped France, in spirit if not, as of yet, in fact.

And, for a wonder, England is sympathetic to his plight, albeit in a detached and stilted fashion that Scotland actually welcomes, as he'd rather not dwell on his choice or think too deeply about France, at all.

Unfortunately, France has no such reserve. Scotland had thought he'd have at least a few days of peace before France even noticed he'd gone – never mind stopped to wonder why he might have left – but he's on the phone the very next morning, demanding to know Scotland's whereabouts.

There's a strained note in his voice that Scotland might once have deluded himself was worry, but with his newfound determination to be clearheaded where France is concerned, he recognises is instead irritation.

He's not used to being the one who's walked away from, especially where Scotland is concerned.

He presumes, no doubt, that Scotland will walk straight back again once France is tired of Netherlands, in his turn. That his desertion is nothing more than peevishness at having to share, and when he suggests as much, part of Scotland wants to agree that they pick up where they left off; to again grasp hold of that tiny scrap of intimacy that is all France can see fit to offer him these days.

But the rest of him is secure in his decision that that tiny scrap is worthless, given everything else it entails, so he tells France, "I love you, but it's not enough, what we have. Had. Whatever. It's _never_ been enough."

France seems incredulous at first but accepts Scotland at his word soon enough. Insultingly quickly, in fact, and with no more than a few bland parting words, it's done. A chapter of his life a thousand years in the making finished and closed off, full stop.

Or it would be, if not for France. If, at any point over those thousand years, he'd shown even a small fraction of the same persistence in trying to attract Scotland interest as he displayed over the next few months, Scotland would have yielded to whatever he desired in an instant.

But he hadn't, so Scotland can't believe it to be anything other than desperation now. Jersey thinks it due to pique at being rebuffed, Wales – who is a hopeless romantic in general, and far too soft on France in particular – something akin to love, but Scotland finds he doesn't particularly care, either way.

The constant stream of phone calls, emails, and eventually letters begging for him to reconsider, or even just a moment of his time, are nothing but an irritation, demanding his attention in the same, imperious way France always has done before. But he doesn't have to listen anymore. There was little benefit to doing so before, and definitely isn't any now, so he ignores them.

If he hadn't, then maybe he might have had some sort of inkling ahead of time that France had grown willing to cast all his pride aside and visit him in person. As is though, he's caught completely unprepared, and so shocked by France's sudden appearance at his door on St Andrew's day, that he invites him inside purely on reflex.

By the time he has regathered enough of his wits to regret the offer, France has already crossed the threshold, and it's too late to rescind it.

"This is for you," he says, thrusting a bottle of Scotland's favourite whisky into his lax and unresisting hand.

"Thanks," Scotland says, albeit grudgingly; resenting that he's been unwillingly put in the position of voicing gratitude for the unasked-for gift, and by extension France's unwelcome intrusion into his home. "What's this for?"

"It's a birthday present."

"But it's not my—"

"I'll go fetch some glasses," France says, carelessly tossing the words back over his shoulder as he turns on his heel and marches away towards the kitchen.

When Scotland catches up with him, he's already ferreted out two glasses from the stack of dirty crockery piled beside Scotland's sink, rinsed them out, and set them side by side on the counter.

"I'll do the honours," he says, and before Scotland can protest, snatches the bottle back just as unceremoniously as he'd presented it.

He pours a generous measure into each glass, and downs one in a single swallow. Although it's a fine blend, and deserves better treatment, Scotland follows suit with the remaining glass. It doesn't help to settle his nerves as he'd thought it might, or bring this whole, strange situation into sharper focus.

It doesn't seem to have done France much good, either. He's still wide-eyed and pale, and his entire body is shivering with what Scotland can only presume is barely leashed nervous energy.

"I suppose you're wondering why I came here," he says, spitting each word out with the force of an invective.

"You haven't really given me the opportunity to wonder much of anything," Scotland says, faintly censorious. "But now you come to mention it, aye, I suppose I am."

"I didn't want to," France is quick to insist. "You've made it perfectly clear that you have no wish to see me. There's something I thought you could help me with, though. I wouldn't ask, but there's no-one else who… I've read everything I can find on the subject, and I still can't…"

His words trail away into ragged, hitching breaths, and for a beat or two he stays silent, head bowed, and hands clenched into fists at his sides.

Then, in a sudden flurry, he steps close to Scotland and roughly pushes the right sleeve of his shirt up to his elbow.

"These are your words," he says, sounding accusatory, as he gestures towards the scrawl covering the inside of his forearm.

 _ **I love you, but it's not enough, what we have.**_

It shouldn't be a surprise to see them there – Scotland's memory is impeccable – but it is, all the same. He'd been so certain that those words could never be his that he'd made a deliberate choice long ago to forget them; to let his eyes glide over that mark and never read them again.

He feels sick and light-headed, and he can barely hear his own voice over the ringing in his ears when he says, "Aye."

"You're my soulmate," France says flatly. "Or, you should be, at least. But I… I've been bonded twice before – one-sided as well as fully – and it wasn't like _this_." He glowers down at his mark, lips pursing in displeasure. "You spoke my words and I felt _nothing_."

Which would explain why Scotland had no idea that he had done so; why France's voice didn't so much as waver during that phone call. That moment of joining – the one that had seared itself so deep into Scotland's skin when his own words were spoken – had passed them both by completely unnoticed and unremarked. It seems sadly fitting, somehow.

"It's become worse than nothing, though, these past few months," France continues. "There's a constant sort of… of _emptiness_ here" – he pats his chest; twice and hard enough that the impact echoes dully – "and it's started to _gnaw_ at me. As I said, I haven't been able to find out why it might be so different this time, but… But you've always insisted know all about… about magic, so I was hoping you might be able to explain it."

It's long been second nature to Scotland to deny the bond, and even longer to hide his words, but France's gaze is so beseeching, his voice so distraught, that it overwhelms his instinct towards concealment. "It's got nothing to do with magic," he says. "It's me. It's my fault you can't feel anything."

Before he has chance to think better of the impulse, Scotland rolls up his own sleeve, and unwinds the bandage that sheathes his arm, baring his words to another's view for the first time since he recognised them for what they were.

France gapes at them wordlessly for a time, and then his eyes flick up to meet Scotland's, diffident and unsure. "My words?" he asks.

As if they could be anyone else's.

Scotland nods. "You're my soulmate, too," he says, and then he laughs, not because he finds the concept humorous, but instead so impossible that it's almost ridiculous. "Or, well, you should be, I suppose, but I broke the bond."

"How?" France blinks at him owlishly. " _Why?_ "

That question, too, is ridiculous, but Scotland can't laugh at it. "Do you remember when you spoke those words?"

France studies his mark again. Shakes his head. "I've said them to you many times, _Écosse_."

"Only once using _that_ name, though," Scotland says. "You'd just told me that 'there was nothing I could offer you that you could possibly want anymore'."

France blanches. "I never realised," he says. "I—"

"I never wanted you to," Scotland says. "You made it perfectly clear that you were done with me then; I was hardly going to admit you're my fucking _soulmate_ after that, was I? I pushed the bond down, I ignored it and I made it not matter, and eventually it broke."

"Bonds can't be broken," France counters.

Scotland shrugs. "Well, I can't feel it anymore, and neither can you, apparently. That's pretty fucking broken, as far as I'm concerned."

France reaches out tentatively and holds his hand out above Scotland's mark; close enough that Scotland can feel the heat of his skin but not quite touching. His lips twist into a rueful smile. "And you wouldn't be interested in seeing if it could be… reformed?" he asks.

Scotland shouldn't even have to pause to consider it. His answer should be an unequivocal 'no', because after these past few months, he thought he'd finally managed to break free of more than just the bond.

But he does pause, and France takes advantage of his hesitation, taking another half-step toward him and lowering his hand. His palm is damp with sweat, his fingers trembling, and though there's no spark of connection, the touch does serve to rouse Scotland to a more prosaic sort of life, grounding him with the plain physicality of the touch.

"If you're only asking because of the marks, then I'm not interested," Scotland says. "If the fact we've got… fucking matching magical tattoos has made you think you want me, I don't—"

France snorts loudly. "I've wanted you for centuries, Scotland. I simply took the mark as a sign that it might not be beyond the bounds of possibility that we could reconcile."

"Centuries?" Scotland lifts an eyebrow sceptically. "You've got a funny way of showing it."

"As have you, _mon cher_ ," France says with a swift grin. "If _Cymru_ hadn't reassured me that you've always been impossible to read, I never would have had the courage to approach you again with this, no matter what my words said."

"You've been talking to Wales about me?" Scotland asks, annoyed at the thought despite everything.

"Later, Scotland," France murmurs, a faint flush of colour bleeding along the arc of his cheekbones. "But now, please…" His grip on Scotland's arm tightens minutely. "You haven't given me an answer."

He cocks his head and looks up at Scotland through his lashes. It's an expression Scotland finds difficult to resist at the best of times, but especially now, with France so close once more; his touch so warm and insistent. The sensation is muted compared to the bond, but Scotland has missed it all the same, and what France seems to be offering – what he seems to be _admitting_ to – is something is something Scotland's wanted for the best part of a millennium. He knows he'd regret it forever if he didn't at least give France a chance to prove that what he just said is true.

"And if the bond never comes back?" Scotland asks, nervously brushing France's mark with the very tips of his fingers. It feels no different to the skin surrounding it.

France lifts one shoulder nonchalantly, though his gaze upon Scotland's face is avid. "Then I'd still want you," he says staunchly. "I told you that the marks don't matter. The.. The bond doesn't either."

"All right," Scotland says, barely able to eke out the words past the sudden swell of hope that rises in his chest, filling the barren space that has yawned there for so long. "Then I'm definitely interested."  
-

* * *

 **-  
Notes:** There may be a sequel to this, but I'm not certain I've thought of the best plot for it yet, so I'm not entirely sure at the moment...


End file.
